The all-time favorite movie of director Bruno Mattei – may he rest in peace – undoubtedly must have been "Predator". One of the last films Mattei made before his death was called "Cannibal Ferox 3: Land of Death" and it was an extremely blatant imitation of "Predator" where he simply replaced the intergalactic hunter with a tribe of cannibals. When I watched that film, I didn't even know yet that "Robowar" existed and was thus unaware of the fact that Mattei already pulled off the exact same trick nearly twenty years earlier! This is, again, a shameless and outright rip-off of the classic 80's action flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, yet this time replacing the alien with an out-of-control robot that was initially designed as a – surprise, surprise – hi tech secret warfare weapon. Every other even remotely memorable element of "Predator" gets copied here, like the testosterone-driven lead characters, rotting human cadavers lying all around the jungle, the blurry computerized view from inside the robot's helmet, entire pieces of dialogs and even the who-played-who end credits! Needless to say this is a terribly inept and laughable B-movie exploitation product, but it is guaranteed entertainment to watch; especially in case you're an avid fan of typically Italian trash. Bunch of beefcake mercenaries, all of them with bad-boy attitudes and carrying around heavy artillery to compensate for their lack of brain capacities, are sent into to the jungle to complete a mission they know absolutely nothing about. They end up facing a practically indestructible handmade killing machine, although it suspiciously looks like a guy in a latex suit talking like he's a defect cassette with songs for children on it. The Robo-Soldier wipes out everyone before the replacement Arnie leader (Reb Brown) discovers it was constructed using spare body parts from his buddy who died in the Vietnam War. End of story. Obviously "Robowar" is just an insignificant and utterly brainless popcorn Sci-Fi/action/War flick with nothing else than explosives and violent shootouts. Speaking of which, I guess Bruno Mattei spent most of the nearly non-existent budget on explosives and ammunition! These dim-witted mercenaries literally fire off gazillions of bullets. Multiple sequences exist of one hireling randomly starting to shoot at trees and the others joyously join in and waste an entire arsenal. But hey, giving the quality of the acting performances, a serenade of bullets is actually less painful to listen to than the atrocious dialogs. The robot is hilariously cheesy, especially when he produces noise and recollects his past. I cannot possibly reward this movie with a rating that is any higher 3 out of 10, but please rest assured it is recommended and guaranteed entertainment!

* note: if you are, like me, a sucker for old movie posters and DVD illustrations, you might have noticed that the cover image depicted here on this page is not "Robowar" but for "Robo Man", an even obscurer 70's Sci-Fi sleeper.

A squad of mighty macho meathead commandos led by the rough'n'tumble Major Murphy Black (Reb Brown in peak ripped and rugged form) run afoul of a lethal high-tech android warrior while out in the jungle doing a covert mission.

Boy, does this hilariously horrendous honey possess all the right wrong stuff to rate highly as a real four-star stinkeroonie: We've got ham-fisted (mis)direction by notorious schlockmeister Bruno Mattei, hysterically lousy dialogue, chintzy (not so) special effects, tacky gore, ineptly staged action set pieces, lots of stuff blowing up real good, and, best of all, a pathetically laughable and unimpressive robo-baddie that looks like a guy in a motorcycle helmet and black leather jumpsuit who keeps saying stuff like "precede" and "hot target" in an extremely annoying tinny metallic voice. Rossella Drudi's shamelessly derivative script blatantly copies "Predator" right down to having similar characters, situations, and even a few groan-inducingly dumb one-liners, plus adds a dash of "Robocop" for extra cruddy measure. Al Festa's pumpin' synthesizer score hits the rousing rockin' spot. An absolute crappy hoot and a half.

Standard and mediocre cash-in on known American films taking parts here and there , dealing with a platoon : Massimo Vani, Romano Puppo, Mel Davison , Max Laurel, Gaines led by Major Murphy : Reb Brown assigned to a dangerous mission in the lush jungle . Along the way they meet and save a prisoner woman : Catherine Hickland, who at the time married David Hasselhoff, and all of them take on a lethal cyborg with fateful results .

This Robowar 1988 contains thrills , chills , gory scenes, jungle landscapes from Philippines , crossfire, violent deaths and lots of blown-up. It results to be an exploitative clone , rip-off of boxoffice successes , mixing scenes from expensive Rambo by George Pan Cosmatos with Stallone , Missing in action by Joseph Zito with Norris , Robocop by Paul Verhoveen with Weller and especially Predator by John McTiernan with Arnold . Played by an international cast and starring the hunk Reb Brown as one army man , giving a lousy performance and overacting, at times , as he's usually shouting and shooting . His best movie was Uncommon Valor , following several similar roles as brave heroes who frequent eliminate villain people such as : "Yor the Hunter from the future" , "Captain America" , "Captain America 2 death too soon" , "Death of a Soldier" , "Strike Commando" , "The Cage" , "The Firing Line" , "Street Hunter ," Last Fight to Hell", "Mercenary Fighters" , "The Cage 2 Arena of Death", and "Space Mutiny" . Support cast is formed by regular secondaries of the Italian B-movies, such as : Massimo Vanni , Romano Puppo , Luciano Pigozzi or Allan Collins , though the scenes of the latter were eventually deleted . And screenwriter Clyde Anderson or Claudio Fragasso himself who often used to play as cameos and brief interventions , in fact here performing the deadly Cyborg and he fainted at times , due to the real warm. All actors lost a lot of pounds when she worked on the film due to the sweaty , hot conditions of the Philippines jungles and extremely heat.

It displays an atmospheric cinematography by Riccardo Grassetti , shot on exotic location in Pasanjan, Laguna , Philippines Islands. Catching and thrilling electronic musical score from Al Festa , composed by means of synthesizer . The motion picture was regularly directed by Bruno Mattei , assisted by his habitual collaborator Claudio Fragasso who also wrote the screenplay along with his wife Rosella Drudi . Bruno Mattei was a hack professional who directed a lot of cheap films in all kind of genres, such as : "Cage Women" , "Hell of the Living Dead" , "Seven Magnificent Gladiators" , "Rats" , "Strike Commando I", its sequel "Strike Commando II" and several others . Rating : 5/10 , a regular and disconcerting production that will appeal to Reb Brown fans .